The Thursday Murder Club

by Richard Osman

  ‘I was not long over from Ireland. I’d only left for adventure, really. In those days they could send you all sorts of places, Africa or Peru, but that’s not for me, converting and what have you. So this place came up and I sailed over in 1967, sight unseen. It was what you see now, really. Very beautiful, very quiet, a hundred Sisters, but quiet enough you wouldn’t know it. They’d pad about. There was peace, here, in the convent, but it was also a place of work, and the hospital was always busy. So I’d stroll about the place. I’d give sermons and take confessions. I’d smile when people were happy and I’d cry with them when they were sad, and that was my job. Twenty-five years old, without a thought in my head and without a bone of wisdom in my body. But I was a man, and that seemed to be the only thing that counted.’

  ‘And you lived here?’ Chris asks the question. Elizabeth had suggested that Chris and Donna take charge of any questioning, as she was aware she would probably need a few Brownie points by the time today was done.

  ‘There was a gatehouse back then and I had rooms there. Nice enough, certainly nicer than the Sisters’ rooms. No visitors, of course. That was the rule, at least.’

  ‘A rule you followed?’ asks Donna.

  ‘At first, of course. I was eager to do well, eager to please, didn’t want to be sent home. All of that.’

  ‘But … things change?’ asks Chris.

  ‘Things change, yes. Things do change. I’d met Maggie very early on. She would clean the chapel. There were four of them cleaning.’

  ‘But only one Maggie?’ says Donna.

  ‘Only one Maggie,’ smiles Matthew Mackie. ‘You know when you look into someone’s eyes for the first time and the whole world breaks apart? And you just think, “Of course, of course, this is what I’ve been waiting for all this time”?’ That was Maggie, all right. And at first it would be, “Good morning, Sister Margaret,” and, “Good morning, Father,” and so on, and she’d get on with her work and I’d get on with mine. Such as it was. But I would smile, and she would smile, and sooner or later it would be, “A fine morning, Sister Margaret, we’re blessed with this sunshine,” and “You’re right, Father, how blessed we are.” And then it would be, “What’s that you’re using on the floor, Sister Margaret?” and, “It’s floor polish, Father.” This wasn’t immediate; this would be a few weeks in.’

  Ron leans forward to say something, but Elizabeth shoots him a look and he doesn’t.

  ‘Anyway, let’s say I had been there a month or so, when Maggie came in for confession. There we both were. And neither of us said so much as a word. We sat there and we sat there, our bodies inches apart, just the wood between them. I can hear her breathing and I can hear my heart thumping. It’s trying to jump clean out of my chest. Don’t ask me how long it was, I wouldn’t have the first clue, but eventually I say, “You’ve probably work to be getting on with, Sister Margaret,” and she says, “Thank you, Father,” and that was that. That was the whole thing clinched and we both knew it. We both knew the confession was the sin and it wouldn’t be the last.’

  ‘Would you like a top-up?’ asks Joyce, tipping her flask of tea. Mackie lifts his fingers to say no thank you.

  ‘We would meet in private, which goes without saying, I know. I would see her every morning, but obviously we couldn’t speak with others around. So I would take her confession and we would talk. And on those two wooden seats we fell in love. Maggie and Matthew. Matthew and Maggie. Speaking through a grille. Can you imagine a love so doomed?’

  ‘And, forgive me, but just for the record, Maggie is Sister Margaret Anne?’ asks Chris.

  ‘She is.’

  ‘Nineteen forty-eight to nineteen seventy-one?’

  Matthew Mackie nods. ‘I knew we had to get out. It would be easy enough. I’d find a job, I had all my exams, Maggie would nurse, we’d buy a place on the coast. We both grew up by the sea.’

  ‘You were going to quit the priesthood?’

  ‘Of course. Let me ask you. Why did you join the police, DCI Hudson?’

  Chris thinks for a moment. ‘Honestly? I’d finished my A levels, my mum told me I had to get a job, and that night we were watching Juliet Bravo.’

  ‘Well, isn’t that just it?’ says Matthew Mackie. ‘In a different town, in a different country, I’d have been a pilot or a greengrocer, but for no good reason other than circumstance, I was a priest. In truth, I’m not a great believer and never have been. It was a job, and a roof, and a passage away from home.’

  ‘And Maggie?’ asks Donna. ‘She was going to quit too?’

  ‘It was harder for Maggie. She had the religion, it was still in her. But she would have. I think she would, one day. I think she’d be in Bexhill with me now, green eyes blazing. But it was hard for her. Mine was the risk of a young man and hers was the risk of a young woman, and that was a greater risk in those days, wasn’t it?’

  Joyce reaches over and takes his hand. ‘What happened to your Maggie, Matthew?’

  ‘She would visit me. At night, if you get the picture. In the gatehouse. It was easy enough to slip away after lights out. Maggie was no fool, she would have fitted in with you lot, no problem. Tuesdays and Fridays she could see me, those were the safest. I would light a candle for her, in an upstairs room. If there was no candle, it meant I’d been called away, or had guests, and she knew not to come. But if I lit the candle, she would always come. Sometimes straight away and sometimes I’d be waiting and pacing, but she would always come.’

  Mackie clears his throat and furrows his brow. Joyce squeezes his hand.

  ‘I haven’t told this story in fifty years, and now twice in a day.’ He gives a weak smile, then presses on. ‘It was a Wednesday, the seventeenth of March, and I had lit the candle and I was waiting and pacing. There was one floorboard in the sitting room that, when you trod on it, would give three little squeaks. And I was back and forth and back and forth and it was “squeak, squeak, squeak”, “squeak, squeak, squeak”. And I would hear little sounds outside and think, “It’s her,” and stop and listen some more, but each time, just silence. The wait went on too long and I got worried. Had she been caught sneaking out? Sister Mary was fierce. I knew everything would be fine really, because at that age, everything always was. So I went upstairs, blew out the candle, came down, laced up my boots and headed up to the convent. To see what I could see.’

  Matthew Mackie looks to the floor. An old man telling the story of a young man. Elizabeth catches Ron’s eye and taps her breast pocket. Ron nods, then reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulls out a small hip flask.

  ‘I’m just going to have a little nip of whisky. I hope you’ll keep me company, Matthew?’

  Without waiting for an answer, Ron pours whisky into Matthew Mackie’s mug. Mackie nods his thanks, eyes still to the floor.

  ‘And what did you see, Father Mackie?’ asks Donna.

  ‘Well, the convent was dark, which was good. If she’d been caught sneaking out there’d be a light somewhere. Sister Mary’s office, maybe. Or some midnight scrubbing in the chapel. But the only lights were in the infirmary. I just wanted to do a little tour, make sure Maggie was safe and sound. I could think of a hundred good reasons she hadn’t come to me that night, but I wanted to ease my mind. I thought I would pick up some papers from the little office I had, off the back of the chapel. You know, if anyone saw me, I was just catching up on some work. I couldn’t sleep. Maybe have a wander around. If I could have, I would have had a peek into the dorms, just to see her lying there.’

  ‘This room we’re in,’ says Joyce, ‘this was one of the dorms.’

  Matthew Mackie looks around, nodding. His left hand gently pats the arm of his chair and he continues.

  ‘I had the chapel key. You know that door, it’s so heavy and the lock was so noisy, but I opened up as quietly as I could, then shut it behind me. The place was pitch black, but I knew my way around, of course. Near the altar I bumped into an old wooden chair that shouldn’t have been there, and t
hat clattered across the floor making a terrible racket. I thought I should light one of the lamps, by the altar, just to make me feel a little calmer, a little less like a thief. I lit the lamp and it was a very dim light, you wouldn’t have seen it from outside, I don’t think, not a bright light at all. Just a dim glow, really. And that’s what I would say about the lamp.’

  Matthew Mackie picks up his mug and takes a sip. He places the mug back down.

  ‘So, that was the light, the one that I lit. And really all you could see was the altar, just shadows, but enough to see. Enough to see.’

  Matthew Mackie rubs his mouth with the back of his hand.

  ‘And there was Maggie. There’s a beam above the altar. At least there was. You could hang incense or blessings. It was structural, I think, the beam, but we used it. Anyway, Maggie had looped a length of rope around the beam and hung herself. And not long before I’d got there. Perhaps she did it when I was tying my laces. Or perhaps it was when I blew out the candle? But she was dead, I could see that clearly. That’s why she hadn’t come.’

  There is quiet in the Jigsaw Room. Matthew Mackie takes another sip from his mug.

  ‘Thank you, Ron, for this.’

  Ron makes a ‘don’t mention it’ gesture with his hands.

  ‘Was there a note, Father Mackie?’ asks Chris.

  ‘No note. I raised the alarm – quietly, of course; this wasn’t a scene for all to see. I woke Sister Mary and she told me the story, really.’

  ‘The story?’ asks Donna.

  Matthew Mackie nods to himself and Elizabeth takes the reins for a moment.

  ‘Maggie was pregnant.’

  ‘Bugger me!’ says Ron. Matthew looks up, and continues his tale.

  ‘She’d confided in someone, another of the young nuns. I never found out who. Maggie must have trusted her, whoever she was, but that was a mistake. The nun told Sister Mary and then, about six, after prayers, Sister Mary called Maggie to her room. Sister Mary didn’t tell me what was said, but I can guess, and that was Maggie packed and on her way. She was to stay one last night and be collected in the morning, straight back to Ireland. I’d have lit my candle around seven, I suppose. Maggie went back to the dorms, maybe right here where we’re sitting. She knew how to slip out, of course, so she slipped out. But that night she didn’t come to me. She came to the chapel and she slipped a noose around her neck. And she took her life and the life of our child.’

  Matthew Mackie looks up at the six other people in the room.

  ‘And that’s my story. So, you see, it wasn’t fine, was it now? And nothing was ever fine again.’

  ‘So how is she buried up on the hill?’ asks Ron.

  ‘That was the deal I made,’ says Mackie. ‘I was to leave, which I did, not a word to a soul. Back to Ireland. They found me a job in Kildare, at a teaching hospital. All records destroyed, new records made, the Church could do what it wanted back then. They wanted me out of the way, no trouble, no scandal. Not a soul but me and Sister Mary saw the body hanging. Whatever story they told in the end, I’ve no idea, but it wasn’t the story of a priest and a baby and a suicide. And in return I asked that they allowed her to be buried in the Garden of Eternal Rest. She wouldn’t have wanted to go home and St Michael’s was the only other place Maggie knew.’

  ‘And Sister Mary agreed?’ asks Donna.

  ‘It looked better for her too. There would have been questions otherwise. Me leaving suddenly, Maggie sent away for burial, people would have strung two and two together. So we made the deal, and the next morning the car that was coming to pick up Maggie, picked me up instead. We drove through the day to Holyhead. I went back home, and that’s where I stayed until I heard that Sister Mary had died. She’s up there in the graveyard too, you’ll see the cherubs on her headstone. The day I heard the news I walked out of my job, I packed a case and I came back to stay. As near as I could to Maggie.’

  ‘And that’s why you did everything you could to stop the bodies being moved?’

  ‘It was the only thing I could do for her. To find her some final peace. You’ve all been up there; you all understand. It was all I had, to say sorry and to say, “I still love you.” Somewhere so beautiful, for the only love I ever knew, and for our baby boy. Or baby girl, but it’s a boy I’ve always carried in my heart. I called him Patrick, which is silly, I know.’

  ‘Without being indelicate, Father,’ says Chris. ‘I would say that gives you an extraordinary motive for killing Ian Ventham.’

  ‘It’s not a day for being delicate. But I didn’t do it. Can you imagine Maggie ever forgiving me if I’d killed Mr Ventham? You didn’t know her, but she’d a temper on her when she wanted. Every step, I did what Maggie would have wanted, and what would have made Patrick proud. I fought in all the ways I knew how, but one day I’ll see Maggie again, and I’ll meet my little boy, and I intend to do that with a pure heart.’

  101

  ‘Do you like Pilates?’ asks Ibrahim.

  ‘I couldn’t tell you,’ says Gordon Playfair. ‘What is it?’

  His tour of Coopers Chase finished, Gordon Playfair is sitting with Ibrahim, Elizabeth and Joyce, on Ibrahim’s balcony. Ibrahim has a brandy, Elizabeth has a G&T and Gordon has a beer. Ibrahim has them in the fridge for Ron, although Ron seems to be drinking wine these days.

  Chris and Donna have returned to Fairhaven. Before they left, Chris had told them a little about Cyprus and about Gianni’s connections. He was pretty sure they have identified their man.

  Donna was clearly still angry at them, but she would get over it. The sun is setting and the day is winding down.

  Matthew Mackie has gone home to Bexhill, and to the two candles he keeps lit at all times. Joyce has promised to come down and visit him. She loves Bexhill.

  ‘It is the art of controlled movement,’ says Ibrahim.

  ‘Hmmm,’ says Gordon Playfair, considering this. ‘Is there darts?’

  ‘There is snooker,’ says Ibrahim.

  Gordon nods. ‘That’s near enough.’

  They look out over Coopers Chase. In the foreground is Larkin Court, curtained windows in Elizabeth’s flat. Beyond that is Ruskin Court, Willows and the convent. Then those beautiful hills, rolling to the horizon.

  ‘I could get used to this,’ says Gordon. ‘There seems to be a lot of drinking involved.’

  ‘Always,’ agrees Ibrahim.

  The phone rings and Ibrahim gets up to answer it. He talks to Gordon Playfair over his shoulder as he goes.

  ‘I think I’ve made Pilates sound too boring. It is very good for the core muscles and for flexibility. At any rate, it is every Tuesday.’

  Gordon watches some of the residents pass by below and sips his beer. ‘You know, I’m not kidding, but I wouldn’t know if any of these women had been here back then. Who’s to say? All those nuns. I wouldn’t know, you know. You could have been one of the nuns, Joyce.’

  Joyce laughs. ‘It feels like I have been for the last couple of years. Not for the want of trying.’

  Elizabeth has been thinking the same as Gordon Playfair. The nuns. Perhaps that was the route they would have to go down next? It was Thursday Murder Club tomorrow. Maybe that’s where they should start. She feels the gin beginning to work its magic. Ibrahim returns from his call.

  ‘That was Ron. He would like us to join him for a drink. It seems Jason has gifts for us all.’

  102

  ‘Me and Bobby had a little reunion drink in the Black Bridge, after we all left here. In Le Pont Noir, anyway.’

  Jason Ritchie takes a swig from his bottle of beer. Ron has a beer too, as he always does if Jason is around. It is important to be a role model.

  ‘You could tell we sort of trusted each other, you know? It felt like we’d both changed for the better over the years. Bobby wouldn’t let on what he’s up to these days, but he seemed happy, so fair play. I don’t suppose anyone wants to tell me what he does now?’

  Jason looks expectantly at Elizabeth and Joyce an
d they both shake their heads.

  ‘Good,’ says Jason. ‘No one likes a grass. But we still couldn’t be sure, you know? Couldn’t be certain one of us hadn’t done it. Couldn’t be sure that it was Gianni, alive and kicking and back for revenge. So I made a call.’

  ‘Ooh, who to?’ asks Joyce.

  Jason smiles. ‘What does no one like, Joyce?’

  Joyce nods her defeat. ‘A grass, Jason.’

  ‘Let’s say I called a friend, someone we all trusted, but someone who Gianni would have trusted too, for different reasons. And he came down – no choice, really, if it’s the two of us ringing – and we asked him straight out. Has Gianni been over? You seen him? Just between us and it never goes further?’

  ‘And had he?’ asks Elizabeth.

  ‘He had,’ says Jason. ‘Gianni came over three days before Tony was murdered and left the day he died. He blamed Tony for grassing him up all those years ago, so he said. Who knows with Gianni?’

  Joyce nods sagely and Jason continues.

  ‘Maybe he just felt the time was right. Put the record straight. Some people have long memories.’

  ‘And you trust this source? And Peter trusts him?’ asks Elizabeth.

  ‘Peter?’ asks Jason.

  ‘Sorry, Bobby,’ says Elizabeth. ‘That’s my age showing. You and Bobby both trust him?’

  ‘With our lives,’ Jason says. ‘He’s the straightest shooter you’ll find. And he had his reasons to help Gianni. If your friends in the police don’t work out who the guy is, then I promise I’ll tell them. But I reckon they’re bright enough to work it out.’

  ‘Why did Gianni send you the photograph, Jason?’ asks Ibrahim.

  Jason shrugs. ‘I think he just wanted us to know it was him. Showing off. Gianni was always like that. He could find my address pretty easy too, everyone knows me round here. Whatever Gianni did, he always had to tell you.’

  ‘And did Gianni look the same? What was his new name?’ asks Elizabeth.